by Blair Grey
“Is this the point where we all hug and make up?” Grant joked.
Braxton snorted. “Let’s not go that far, but when all this is over with Lex, how about I’ll buy you a drink?”
“Deal,” Grant said.
I tried to find it inside of myself to feel happy, knowing that the club was going to be okay, or at least that we were one club again. Grant and Braxton were no longer at odds. Hopefully, Braxton could convince all of the guys who followed him to follow Grant now, and that things were going to be slightly different from how they’d been before, different enough, while still being the same club that Ray had once run.
This meeting should be everything that I’d been hoping for. But instead, my priorities seemed to have gotten mixed up somewhere along the way.
I glanced at my watch again. “Yeah, yeah, get out of here,” Grant said, waving me off. “We’ll hash out all the details.”
“Where’s he going?” Braxton asked curiously.
“He’s just got something he has to do,” Grant said. “Non-club business.” I flashed him a grateful smile when he didn’t tell Braxton all about Tara or Sam or the rest of it. I’d let Braxton know eventually, but I didn’t want him to feel like I wasn’t invested in the club anymore or that I had too many distractions.
I sped over to the school, glancing at the time every couple of minutes. I was late, but he should still be there. There was no way he would have gotten out of school just yet. Right? I didn’t know exactly what time schools let out, but I was sure it wasn’t this early.
And sure enough, when I got to the school, there were still plenty of cars in the parking lot, plus kids were on the playground, located off to the side of the school, their shrieks of laughter loud and clear. School was still in session, and I had made it.
I headed through the front door, pausing at the visitors’ table to announce that I was there for Parents Day, on behalf of Sam. Tara had told me his teacher’s name and everything, and I felt official. Like I really belonged there among the other dads and moms at the school.
But when I told my name to the woman behind the desk and said that I was there for Sam, she winced. “Hold on just a second,” she said, disappearing back into the administrative offices. She came out with another woman, a smiling blond woman who held a hand out to me.
“Cameron, nice to meet you,” she said, but she sounded pained. “I’m Claudia Leroy, Sam’s principal.”
Was this the point where they told me that they knew I was in Red Eyes and that they didn’t want me anywhere near the school? But how could they possibly know that? I had never seen either of these women before in my life.
“I’m afraid that Sam’s not here anymore. He already went home for the day,” she continued.
I blinked at her. “But school’s still in session,” I said.
“It is,” Claudia agreed. “But Sam was pretty upset when you weren’t here with the rest of the parents, and I ended up calling his mom. She came to get him a little while ago.”
I felt my heart plummet, knowing that I had really screwed up this time. Sam had been pretty upset? I felt terrible. Guilty. I didn’t know what I could have done differently, but that didn’t make things any better.
And Tara knew. I hadn’t had a chance to call her and explain myself, but she already knew.
Fuck. What the hell was I going to do now?
34
Tara
Sam wasn’t crying by the time I got to the principal’s office, but I could immediately tell how upset he still was. He flung himself against my legs, clinging to me, and I bent down to pick him up, holding him close to me while he sucked on his thumb. He was a little too old for that, but I didn’t tell him to stop. I felt terrible, knowing that all of this was my own fault.
How could I possibly have let Cameron into our lives? I had seen this coming from a mile off. I always claimed that Sam was my first priority, but ever since I’d met Cameron, I’d made so many stupid decisions that could possibly hurt Sam, either physically or emotionally. For the first time, I felt like a terrible mother.
“Thanks for calling me, and for letting him out early,” I said to Claudia. “I’m sorry about all of this.”
Claudia waved that away. “I hate to say it, but this thing happens more than you’d realize.” She smiled at Sam and held out a bright-red lollipop. “But, Sam, we’ll see you smiling face again tomorrow, won’t we? Your teacher said you’re excited to measure your bean sprouts tomorrow.”
Sam nodded his head against my shoulder, but he didn’t say anything.
This thing happened more than I would realize, Claudia had said. But that didn’t make me feel any better about it. I felt as though I was the one who had let Sam down.
I carried him out to the car and got him all strapped in. “Do you want to go home, or should we stop for ice cream?” I asked Sam. He shrugged, staring out the window, and my heart broke a little further. I knew he didn’t realize that it was my fault, and I knew he wasn’t shutting me out just to be mean. He was just upset. But the silent treatment from him definitely didn’t feel good.
I drove us to the ice cream parlor. To be honest, it was for me as much as it was for him.
He perked up a little as he dug into his vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and gummy bears. One thousand calories of pure sugar and he was going to be climbing the walls that afternoon I was sure, but I was ready to give him anything that he wanted right now. This was all my fault.
“But why didn’t he come?” Sam asked plaintively when he was most of the way through his ice cream. It was probably the question that his poor little brain tried to work through this whole time.
I sighed. “I don’t know, honey,” I told him. “I haven’t talked to him. I guess something must have come up.” I had a feeling it was something to do with Red Eyes. Or maybe he had just decided that he didn’t care to go. It wasn’t his kid after all. And he probably didn’t realize just how upset Sam would be when he bailed.
“Did I do something bad?” Sam asked, even more heartbreakingly.
“Oh, Sammy, of course not,” I said, reaching across the table to squeeze his sticky hand. “No way.”
“But you didn’t talk to him, so you don’t know,” Sam said, shaking his head.
“I do know,” I said firmly. “I know that you’re the best kid a mother could ever ask for, that you’re so good, and that you would never do anything that would make Cameron mad at you. It wasn’t your fault, honey. It’s just that sometimes, adults have too many things that they need to do, too many responsibilities. And sometimes, they can’t do everything that they want to do.”
Sam frowned, but he went back to silence after that. I wished there was some way that I could convince him that it really wasn’t his fault. I wanted to tell him that Cameron was just a jerk. But the words would never come out of my mouth. Between feeling upset about Sam and feeling upset for myself, knowing that I was never going to be able to forgive Cameron, that we were going to have to break up and that I was going to have to never see him again, I felt close to tears.
But I had to keep it together. For Sam’s sake.
We finished our ice cream and headed home in silence. And even though normally the ice cream would have had him bouncing off the walls for the rest of the day, today he still seemed exhausted. The tears had really taken it out of him. “Why don’t we get you ready for a nap?” I suggested, seeing that he was nodding off as I got him out of the car.
Sam nodded against my shoulder, and I carried him into the house and then up to his room. I had just gotten him to his bed, and he was just starting to snooze, when the doorbell rang.
I frowned, glancing at my watch. The mailman, maybe. Although I couldn’t remember ordering any packages. Sam barely stirred at the sound, and I brushed my hands over his blanket, tucking him carefully in before I headed down to answer the door.
It wasn’t the mailman, though. It was Cameron. I wanted to slam the door in his face. But there w
as a part of me that knew I needed to hear his reasoning. If I didn’t hear him out, I was always going to wonder what, exactly, had destroyed our chances at a relationship. With Jeremy, it had been finding out that I was pregnant. But what was it with Cameron? Why had he promised that he would be there today and then decided that it was okay to not show up?
How had I read him so wrong?
I stepped back to let him inside, waiting for him to say something. To explain himself.
“Is Sam here?” Cameron asked. “His principal said that he had gone home early. I was only a little late. I was still going to be there.”
I gaped at him. “Seriously?” I asked. “That’s what you want to say? His principal called me over an hour after you were supposed to be there. Because Sam was crying about the fact that you weren’t there. And then on the way home, I had to explain to Sam that it wasn’t his fault that you weren’t there, and that he hadn’t done anything wrong. I had to try to explain that sometimes adults just have other things that they have to do.”
“And that’s all this was, seriously,” Cameron said. “Where is he? Will you let me apologize to him?”
“He’s taking a nap. He cried himself out,” I said shortly.
“God,” Cameron said, running a hand back through his hair.
“I told you not to commit to this unless you were sure—that you were positive—that you could be there. I told you not to hurt my little boy. But you weren’t there, and you really hurt Sam.” I could feel myself starting to get emotional now, too, as tears pricked the corners of my eyes, and I angrily dashed them away. I wasn’t going to cry over him. Guys were stupid, and I didn’t need them in my life. I didn’t need Cameron.
I just wished that I could convince my body that I didn’t want him. But even after this stupid little incident, I still wanted him. Having him near me just did something to me. I had to be strong, though. Keep it together. For Sam's sake.
“I’m sorry,” Cameron said. “I wanted to be there. I really did. But something came up with the club.”
“Like I knew it would,” I said, shaking my head.
“You know that we’ve been having trouble. That Grant and Braxton were both trying to lead the club and ended up splitting it in two. But they wanted to meet today, and we managed to patch things up. I went to the school as soon as I could.”
“And it wasn’t soon enough,” I said coldly. I wanted to be happy for him. To congratulate him on fixing the club and getting everyone to come together. I knew how stressed he had been about all of that. But at the same time, what he was saying was that the club was more important to him than Sam or me. And I was looking for someone who, like me, would treat Sam like he was the center of their universe.
That was ridiculous, though. If Sam’s own father couldn’t treat Sam like that, how could I expect that from any other guy? No matter how good a kid he was, no one else was ever going to want to protect Sam the way that I did. I was never going to find someone who would be my partner, not in the way that I needed.
Better that I just get over the whole idea of that right now.
“I want you out of here,” I said to Cameron, reaching around behind him to open the door.
“But wait,” Cameron said. “If I can talk to Sam when he wakes up. If I can apologize and figure out some way to make it up to him?”
“You’ve done enough damage,” I snapped. “I think it’s better that you don’t come around anymore.”
“What about Lex? What about looking out for you guys?” Cameron pressed.
“I’ll call the police if he tries anything,” I said. “I don’t want you anywhere near my son. You’re proving to be the one who I needed to be worried about.”
Cameron reeled back as though I had hit him. “I didn’t mean to,” he whispered.
“Yeah, well, you did,” I said impatiently. “Now I’m asking you again, please leave.”
Cameron paused for a moment, staring down into my eyes. I forced my expression to stay angry, even though all I really wanted was to break down and cry.
Why had I thought that this was going to be so different from the last relationship? You couldn’t count on guys. I knew that. Maddie had been cautioning me right from the start, and I just hadn’t listened. But Cameron had his own agenda, and we weren’t high enough on his list to matter.
Finally, Cameron nodded at me and headed out the door. If I had thought that my heart was breaking before, it was nothing compared to the way that it felt now. But I didn’t call after him to wait. I knew that no matter how much this hurt, I was doing the right thing.
I closed the door firmly behind him, leaning against it for a moment and taking a deep breath. Slowly, I exhaled, my eyes slipping shut, a couple tears spilling down my cheeks. Again, I dashed them angrily away. I wasn’t going to cry, not over this guy. But God, I felt terrible.
I wanted to cry. If it hadn’t been for Sam in the other room, I probably would have sunk to the floor right there and cried my eyes out. And then gone and opened a bottle of wine and got myself nice and drunk. I would have called Maddie and told her that I needed her to come over and take care of me, to bring ice cream and shitty chick flicks and just wallow with me.
But I couldn’t wallow. I had to keep it together. Sam might be asleep now, but he was still depending on me to keep our lives on track, to keep the house clean, to cook dinner, to go to work, to get him off to school. To do all the little day-to-day tasks, just like I had always done. Those things didn’t stop just because a heart broke.
I went back to Sam’s room, peeking in at him where he slept on the bed. He might be five and more precocious than I ever could have expected, but he was still so small. Still such a kid. He needed his mother there to protect him. I knew that.
There were plenty of things that I needed to do around the house, but for now, just for a little while, I went over to the bed and crawled in next to him, curling my body around his. I would look out for him, above everything else. From now on.
That’s what mothers do.
35
Cameron
Most of the club members showed up to the emergency meeting that Grant and Braxton jointly called for Tuesday, and it was a relief to see the clubhouse filled with people again. Braxton had given me all the information that I, as treasurer, needed to know about what he and his guys had been up to while the club had been split. The numbers were looking really good, in spite of the fact that Lex had apparently started to weasel his way in with some of the businesses. Most of the businesses that he had found his way with already were minor ones, ones who hadn’t been loyal to us for very long. Ones that we weren’t too worried about.
Not that we wanted to let him get away with poaching our businesses, but things could have been a lot worse.
I wondered what the plan was. I was sure that Braxton and Grant had continued to hash things out at Giorgio’s the previous day after I had taken off to go to Sam’s school. I probably should have called one or both of them last night to hear what they had talked about. Just so that we were all on the same page.
But I’d been a little preoccupied.
I hadn’t really expected Tara just to let me walk in there and apologize. I had expected to have to work for it. But I could tell that she liked me, just as I liked her, and I had expected that there would be some way that I could make it up to her. I had at least expected that she would let me stay and sleep on the couch, to keep looking after her and Sam, and I had hoped that I could get back in her good graces during that time.
Instead, she had told me to leave.
I kept going over it again and again, trying to figure out what I could possibly have done. If I could only have talked to Sam, apologized to him. I was sure that the kid would have forgiven me. That was just his nature. If I could get him to forgive me, then I could get Tara to forgive me.
But Tara wouldn’t even give me that chance, and I supposed I couldn’t blame her.
Anyway, I hadn’t wanted to th
ink about the meeting with Grant or Braxton after all of that. I had gone home and gotten drunk on my own, until I passed out on my own couch, memories floating through my head of the time that I’d had Tara there with me.
I’d debated not showing up to this meeting today, too, when I found out about it, but I knew that that wasn’t going to solve anything. On the contrary, I needed the club now more than ever. Who knew if I was ever going to find someone like Tara again? That might have been my last chance at something other than this lonely existence, and I had squandered it. All that was left was to lean on these guys, my brothers, and to keep pushing on as the treasurer of the club until the day that I died.
After all, what the hell else was I going to do?
Not to mention the fact that I was curious. This club had been my whole life for so long that I couldn’t help wondering what was happening to it, and what the guys had decided. I just needed to know.
Braxton got up to talk first. “As you guys all know, I don’t really want to be leader of this thing,” he said wryly, looking around at the group. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”
There was laughter around the club. I could see Grant rolling his eyes, but even he looked amused.
Braxton’s expression turned serious. “We have to be unified,” he said. “Any sign of weakness is a sign to our enemies that they can take over our territory here.” He grinned again. “And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve gotten pretty used to being a member of the most powerful club in all of New Mexico. I don’t think we really want to relinquish that title, do we?”
“Get to the point,” one of the older guys said. “What are you saying?”
Braxton nodded at Grant. “Grant is the leader of this club. That’s what Ray wanted, and that’s what we’re going to have. I’m behind him, and I expect the rest of you to be as well.”
“Or you’ll what?” one of the new recruits joked, and everyone laughed.